Dan Savage- I Hope Tony Perkins Doesn't Pray to Jesus With That Mouth

[n2doc]

posted by DAN SAVAGE on FRI, MAY 11, 2012 at 1:38 PM
Because every time Tony Perkins open that mouth on teevee he goes and breaks the Ninth Commandment. Take his appearance on MSNBC's Hardball last night with Barney Frank.


Everyone is praising Barney Frank for tearing into Perkins. And Frank did an amazing job—I lurv me some Barney—and you can sense that Chris Matthews is growing increasingly uncomfortable with hosting Perkins, a frequent guest on Hardball and the head of an SPLW-designated anti-gay hate group. But both Matthews and Frank allowed Perkins to assert, again and again, that there are "studies" out there that prove children do better in homes with "a mom and a dad." That's a lie—it's false fucking witness—and Perkins damn well knows it.

The study Perkins alludes to is a 2010 Department of Health and Human Services study. And It didn't compare children raised by opposite-sex couples to children raised by same-sex couples. It compared children with two parents in the home to children with single parents. One of Perkin's fellow hell-bound sinners—another habitual breaker of the Ninth Commandment—had his lying ass handed to him when he made the mistake of making this argument in front of Al Franken:

U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota caught Thomas Minnery, vice president of government and public policy for Focus on the Family, blatantly mischaracterizing a government study on the benefits to children of being raised by two married parents as referring to opposite-sex parents, when the report itself drew no such distinction.... Testifying at a Senate hearing on a bill that would repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Franken said, “Mr. Minnery, on page eight of your written testimony, you write, quote, ‘Children living … with their own married biological or adoptive mothers and fathers were generally healthier and happier, had better access to health care, less likely to suffer mild or severe emotional problems, did better in school, were protected from physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and almost never live in poverty compared with children in any other family form.’ You cite a Department of Health and Human Services study that I have right here from December 2010 to support this conclusion.
“I checked the study out,” Franken said, pausing to let a ripple of laughter from the gallery dissipate, “and I would like to enter into the record, if I may, that it actually doesn’t say what you said it says. It says, ‘nuclear families,’ not opposite-sex married families, are associated with those positive outcomes. Isn’t it true, Mr. Minnery, that a married same-sex couple that has had or adopted kids would fall under the definition of a nuclear family in the study that you cite?"
Minnery replied, “I would think that the study when it cites nuclear families would mean a family headed by a husband and wife.”
“It doesn’t,” Franken said, again spurring laughter from onlookers. But as with the earlier audience reaction, Franken, a former comedian, remained deadpan serious. “The study defines a nuclear family as one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents to all the children in the family. And I frankly don’t really know how we can trust the rest of your testimony if you are reading studies these ways.”

Studies have shown—again and again and again—that children with same-sex parents do just as well or better than children with opposite-sex parents.

Chris Matthews? Let's play hardball: the next time you have Perkins on Hardball—if there's a next time—ask him how he squares his faith with his willingness to bear false witness against his gay and lesbian neighbors.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/05/11/i-hope-tony-perkins-doesnt-pray-to-jesus-with-that-mouth

[Brickbat]

1. I could watch that Senate hearing every day of the week and not get tired of it. It was classic.

[Swede Atlanta]

2. Franken is a gem......

He can inject humor in a very effective manner when appropriate but he is dead serious. No one should think he is a light-weight on facts, issues or policies. He is one of the strongest voices for the progressive movement in the country.